1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrical connector for use in an electrical system including an electrical harness and more particularly to an electrical connector having a smart component, such as a logic device or integrated circuit chip, incorporated as a part of the electrical connector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical wiring systems including electrical harness formed of a number of discrete conductors, such as wires, are commonly used to interconnect servomechanical components in automobiles, appliances and in other devices. Discrete servomechanical components such as sensors and transducers are connected together by the electrical harness. Typically these servomechanical devices do not possess any intelligence or computational capability. Such devices either respond to or generate a digital or analog signal. Such devices are typically controlled by a central control station, which can be in turn manually controlled or controlled by a microprocessor or other computational device. Electrical harnesses constructed in this manner employ point to point wiring.
With the introduction of microcomputers and microprocessors into electromechanical systems, some economies were realized by employing buss technology. However, the utilization of buss technology has generally required the utilization of some form of hand shaking, that is the recognition by the controlled device of the address sent by the microcomputer which is unique to the particular recognition device. Further, this type of technology generally utilizes ribbons of parallel conductors requiring a multitude of wires for signals such as address, command, resets, interrupts, power, grounds and timing. Additionally, such ribbon or buss type technologies which loop around electromechanical systems are susceptible to induced electrical noise which may require the use of sophisticated and extensive error detection and error correction techniques. It is desirable that the electrical system be bi-directional having the capability of transmitting and receiving commands and responses to and from discrete servomechanical sensors and transducers employed in the system. Such a system requires some interconnection apparatus containing a logic device which can be connected to conventional sensors or transducers, unless new servomechanical components containing such intelligent or smart capabilities are to be employed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,399 discloses one such component which employs an insulation displacement technique for attaching a smart connector to the conductors in a multi-conductor ribbon connector. U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,947 discloses an addressable connector which can be attached to the conductors in a multiconductor cable.
An alternative approach for use with a logic device or integrated circuit component is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,745 which employs a lead frame package for incorporating logic devices into a harness comprised of insulated wires. The package depicted therein has male terminal tabs deployed in a conventional configuration to mate with a separate connector having receptacle contacts. Other similar devices employing male terminals to connect with a separate connector having female receptacles are depicted in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,252,864; 4,339, 768; 4,530,003; and 4,611,389.